Digest of Biblical Civil Law

The king is from the people, and not only and immediately from God: The people’s power to make a king is implied by the Bible in that it says that they chose one person rather than another as king (1 Ki. 16), and this choice was a lawful act, for the people chose Solomon and not Adonijah, though Adonijah was the older brother (1Ki. 1). The people do not passively approve God’s act; when the servants of David and the states cried, “God save king Solomon!” [1 Ki. 1:39], they made Solomon king. God is the first agent in all acts of the creature. There are not two acts, but God and His people act together; God makes the king by the vote of the people, who choose out of a multitude of potential candidates. And the Bible explicitly says that the people turned the private man into a public official: 2 Sam. 16:18; Judg. 8:22, 9:6; 11:8; 2 Ki. 14:21; 2 Sam. 12:1; 2 Ch. 23:3.
- Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, Question 4 (1644), at http://www.constitution.org/sr/q04.txt